I’ve not yet had the chance to read Sarah Palin’s new book, but if early reviews are anything to go by, I haven’t missed much of substance.

Yesterday, Palin kicked off her campaign — er, book tour — in Michigan. The choice was certainly a political one. The Alaskan blogger’s critical remarks about the McCain campaign’s decision to pull out of this state was what originally earned her the “going rogue” status.

It came as no surprise that throngs of people showed up to the event. Many camped out overnight to guarantee their book would be signed the following evening, and many others spent hours that day waiting in line for the signing to begin.

MSNBC sent Norah O’Donnell to cover the event. Over the course of the day, Norah went up and down the lines, interviewing the “Palinistas” as some of them called themselves. But as was discussed in Norah’s report, Palin’s fans seemed to have a lot of trouble identifying what exactly it was they liked about Sarah Palin. Of course, they liked her charm, her down-to-earth folksiness. But other than that, they were at a loss for words.

Those that attempted to justify their support based on policy often garbled her positions. My favorite was a girl who said she was such a huge fan because Palin supported the Constitution, unlike Barack Obama who favored unconstitutional bailouts.

It got awkward when Norah pointed out that Sarah Palin supported the bailouts as governor, too.

More than anything, the signing yesterday highlighted the fundamental irony of the Alaskan Blogger. Sarah Palin has become exactly what she criticized Obama for being during the general election — a celebrity. Her book isn’t a somber reflection on the current state of affairs or an outline for how she would solve the tough problems we’re facing as a country. It appears to be nothing more than a shallow, vindictive attempt to settle scores with a handful of McCain staffers who didn’t treat her as adoringly as the fans at her signings.

The main problem for Sarah Palin during the campaign was a lack of credibility. There is no doubt that she gave an incredible speech at the Republican National Convention. But after the interviews with Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric, people stopped taking her seriously. Her image of incompetence was cemented in the minds of Americans by Tina Fey’s portrayal of her on Saturday Night Live.

I was astounded to hear her announce her resignation from the Governorship of Alaska just months after the election. This was her chance to hunker down, gain valuable experience, and learn a thing or two about the political process before potentially running again in 2012. This was her chance to restore the image she crafted during her Convention speech. This was her chance to prove that she was, in fact, more than just a pretty face. More than just a celebrity.

But she blew it. She resigned. And she left everyone asking, Why?

The answers she gave during her concession speech were all very weak: Legal bills caused by “frivolous” lawsuits were costing the great state of Alaska too much. Her conscience couldn’t bear it. She wasn’t planning on running for a second term, and wanted to avoid a “lame duck” session. And so on…

As bad as quitting halfway through one’s first term is, Palin could have probably redeemed herself if she showed she was willing to put the past behind her and start looking to the future. This book was the perfect chance for that. Sure, the release so soon after her resignation and the reported $1.5 million advance offered by her publisher do raise questions about her motives for quitting as Governor.

Still, a thoughtful book about policy and the future of America could have been a solid foundation for a 2012 run. It worked for a certain Senator from Illinois. But books about policy don’t get $1.5 million advances, and they don’t let you settle scores and get back at those you believe wronged you. Writing such a book was much too tempting to resist.

And so here we stand, wondering what on earth is going through Sarah Palin’s mind. Or indeed, if anything is going through Sarah Palin’s mind. Does she see Going Rogue as just an opportunity to make money or land her own talk show? Or does she seriously think it will boost her credentials and help her to be seen as a more viable candidate in 2012?

Only the Alaskan blogger knows.

Former GOP presidential candidate Senator John McCain comments to "The Hill" on his vp running mate Sarah Palin's new book "Going Rogue."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who spoke to The Hill Monday evening, denied Sarah Palin’s allegation that his campaign stuck her with a $50,000 legal bill to pay for the cost of vetting her as a potential vice presidential candidate.

McCain said the bill was for legal work related to allegations that Palin made improper use of her influence as Alaska’s governor to press for the dismissal of a state trooper named Mike Wooten. Wooten was embroiled in a custody dispute with Palin’s younger sister, Molly McCann.

“That was addressed by Trevor Potter,” said McCain, “That was over the Troopergate.”

In a statement to the Associated Press, Potter, McCain’s general counsel, denied that McCain’s campaign billed Palin for vetting her.

“To my knowledge, the campaign never billed Gov. Palin for any legal expenses related to her vetting and I am not aware of her ever asking the campaign to pay legal expenses that her own lawyers incurred for the vetting process,” he said.

Palin made the charge in her new book, “Going Rogue: An American Life,” which listed a litany of complaints Palin had with McCain’s campaign, such as its decision to limit her access to reporters. Palin also questioned how the campaign handled the announcement of her daughter’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

McCain told The Hill that he nevertheless enjoyed Palin’s book.

“I hope she sells lots of them,” he said.

Palin received a $5 million advance from HarperCollins, according to the New York Times.

Alexander Bolton
The Hill

Sarah Palin discusses "Going Rogue" on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Sarah Palin’s interview on Oprah started off newsy, with lots of talk about her McCain campaign handlers and how they restricted her, the Katie Couric interview, etc. There are a few headlines flying around this evening after it finally aired…so here are a few of them. You can pick the scooplet you think is most newsworthy. In no particular order:

1. Asked about 2012, Palin said, “It’s not on my radar screen.”

2. She dismissed the idea of having a talk show of her own: “Oprah, you’re the queen of talk shows. there’s nothing to ever worry about.”

3. She said she didn’t get a say in how Bristol’s pregnancy was announced. The McCain campaign came to her with a press release that conveyed what, Palin suggested to Oprah, was an inappropriate level of glee with her daugher’s teenage pregnancy–then she rewrote it with the aide who brought it to her…and then the campaign sent out the original version instead.

“I did not want the message to be sent out that we were giddy happy to be grandparents,” Palin said.

“We see it scroll across the screen, and there it is, what I didn’t want sent”

4. After all the post-campaign stories about her alleged shopping spree and how much it cost the Republican National Committee, she said that when she realized the campaign would be picking her wardrobe, she thought, “I don’t like to shop, and that’s one less think I’m going to have to worry about.”

5. She took the blame for any problems that arose from her handling. “At the end of the day, I’m the candidate, and if ever I got sucked into that…it’s my fault.”

6. On why the McCain-Palin ticket lost: “The economy tanked under a Republican administration”…”people wanted change”….and “I think our ticket was perceived as status quo.”

7. She said she didn’t think the Katie Couric interview went well, but the McCain campaign scheduled follow-ups anyway. “The campaign said, ‘Right on, good’…and of course, I’m thinking, ‘If you thought that was a good interview, I don’t know what a bad interview is.”

8. She she didn’t tell Couric any newspapers she reads because she was “already so annoyed” with Couric (she says she didn’t like the “kind of badgering questions” of the previous interview she had done with her).

“It was more like, ‘Are you kidding me? Are you really asking me?’” Palin said.

“We had just come off the most amazing rally, working the rope line for I don’t know how long,” Palin said. “And we’re running back stage…and there’s the perky one again, with the microphone and the camera rolling.”

9. Levi Johnson has an “open invitation” to Thanksgiving dinner.

10. She says Levi, basically, is a liar. “I did hear that he said I never really went to hockey games, too, and just so many of the inconsistencies, that’s just Levi’s gig right now.”

11. On why she resigned for governor, she didn’t really produce an answer that satisfied Oprah, but her main point seemed to be that she didn’t feel she could speak her mind about national issues without lawsuits and ethics violations being filed against her.

“Everything had so changed for my administation, there were so many opposition researchers, some of them [sent] by the Obama camp…to start the FOIA requests and the ethics violation charges,” Palin said.

“It was a point where my state…was being hampered by my presence there in the shackles behind the governor’s desk. I wasn’t about to get up there and talk about an issue…otherwise an ethics violation would have been filed,” she said.

“I decided, ‘No, I’m going to get out there and fight for Alaska’s issues…without having to worry that everything that I were to say would result in another lawsuit or an ethics violation charge,” she said.

Marc Ambinder
The Atlantic

I am so interested in the American tour that Sarah Palin will be promoting this week for her book Going Rogue: An American Life. I think there is something we all can learn from this. If anything, it is a media spectacle unlike anything ever seen before: Sarah Palin, the former Governor of Alaska, who makes history as the first female Vice Presidential candidate for the Republican Party, dishes her perspective on the inside story behind the McCain campaign. While I haven’t read the book myself, (I plan on buying a copy soon,) it will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the end and how it will bode for the future of national and global politics, if at all.

Palin talks about controversies and future with Oprah.

(CNN) – When Sarah Palin got a surprise phone call from the McCain campaign one August afternoon asking if she’d like to be on the Republican presidential ticket, the then-Alaska governor didn’t doubt for a moment she was ready for the challenge.

“When I got the call, it was not such a shocking call to me,” Palin told talk-show host Oprah Winfrey in a highly anticipated interview that aired Monday. “I felt quite confident in my abilities and my executive experience and I knew that this is an executive administrative job. I was happy to get in there and contribute.”

Nor was Palin deterred by the fact she had five kids at home, including an infant with special needs.

“It never occurred to me that I couldn’t do the job because of children,” she said. “My children are my strength. … They allow me to be grounded.”

But what did shock Palin was just how much the campaign knew about her and her family before she even formally met with Sen. John McCain to discuss the job. Contrary to what was reported in the media, Palin said, she was extensively vetted and the campaign knew exactly “who they were getting.”

Full story

"Going Rogue: An American Life" presents Sarah Palin's distorted view of politics and reality.

Excerpts from Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue have been released by several news agencies and other sources who have received advanced copies. Here are the first ten lies from Palin’s memoirs:

1. The Cover Byline: Palin didn’t write the book by herself. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author’s name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent (a well-known homophobe). Going Rogue does not.
2. The Subtitle: An American Life. Aside from her infancy, Palin has really spent very little time outside of Alaska, and according to John McCain’s campaign advisors, was shockingly unfamiliar with American geography and American history. “Alaska,” as John McPhee noted in his resplendent Coming Into the Country, “is a foreign country…Its nature is its own.”
3. Going Rogue features Palin’s obsession with Katie Couric and characterizes the CBS anchor as “badgering.” Palin refused to prep for the Couric interview because she was more concerned about her popularity in Alaska than about what was best for the campaign. Was it really badgering to ask what books or periodicals Palin read? Palin further claims that Couric suffered from low self-esteem. In fact, according to those close to Palin, it’s the former governor who suffers from low self-esteem and frequently projects that onto other women.
4. Palin asserts that there was a “jaded aura” around McCain’s political advisors once she entered the campaign. In fact, McCain’s aides bent over backwards to protect Palin and to try to get her up to speed on international affairs. In addition to not knowing whether or not Africa was a continent, according to sources in the McCain campaign, Palin also didn’t understand the difference between England and Great Britain. And much, much more.
5. Palin contends to have been saddled with legal bills of more than $500,000 resulting from what she calls “frivolous” ethics complaints filed against her. The lion’s share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council.
6. Palin rather astonishingly claims that she was saddled with $50,000 in bills for the legal fees associated with her vice-presidential vetting. A) She was not vetted; B) A McCain campaign advisor says this is “categorically untrue.”
7. Palin states that she found out only “minutes” before John McCain’s concession speech that she would not be allowed to make remarks of her own introducing McCain. In fact, she had been told at least three times that she would not be allowed to give the speech and kept lying about it in the hopes of creating some last-minute chaos that would allow her to assume the dais.
8. Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a “pipe dream” into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.
9. Palin implies that the McCain campaign intentionally bungled the release of information regarding her daughter Bristol’s pregnancy and refused to let her rewrite it. In fact, the McCain campaign allowed her to rework the draft, but the original version went out accidentally. Palin reportedly accepted the recalcitrant staff member’s apology for the mistake, then when she left, ordered her immediately dismissed of her duties.
10. Palin complains that McCain’s senior advisors, most notably Steve Schmidt, forced her to “stick with the script” they provided her. In fact, Schmidt & Co. were encumbered with the task of keeping Palin from lying and misleading people throughout the campaign, from her well-documented lies about the “Bridge to Nowhere” to her duplicities about her husband Todd’s assocation with the Alaska Independence Party. Palin’s lying to those in the McCain campaign was so troubling to them that they cringed every time she went “off script.”

And that’s just for starters.

Award-winning writer and filmmaker Geoffrey Dunn’s book The Lies of Sarah Palin: The Untold Story Behind Her Relentless Quest for Power will be released by St. Martin’s Press in spring 2010.

Geoffrey Dunn
The Huffington Post

Ouch!

The advance copies of Sarah Palin’s kind of autiobiography are turning out to unearth some real doozies for people that care about the truth.

The McCain camp is out Saturday morning with their opinion of the book; McCain Camp Book ‘Petty and Pathetic’.

And former McCain Campaign Manager Steve Schmidt had some choice words about Palin’s characterizations of those working in the campaign.

“It’s all fiction,” he said.

Former McCain strategist John Weaver slammed Palin for using the book for “petty and pathetic” score-settling.

“Sarah Palin reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie ‘Harvey,’ complete with imaginary conversations. All books like these are revisionist and self-serving, by definition,” Weaver wrote in an email to POLITICO. “But the score-settling by someone who wants to be considered a serious national player is petty and pathetic.”

“The problem wasn’t who her interview was with, the problem was her interview,” he added. “Couric asked no trick questions. This just seems to be an attempt to obscure as bad a performance since Roger Mudd asked Ted Kennedy that simple question.”

The Swamp – Palin Unbottled

A good wrap up of the book that is described as one long complaint about the McCain campaign, and its staffers. After a strange diatribe about the campaign’s penchant for Atkins diet bars, she recounts the reaction to the infamous prank call from a fake President Nicholas Sarkozy. ”Right away, the phones started ringing. One of the first calls was [Steve] Schmidt, and the force of his screaming blew my hair back. “How can anyone be so stupid?! Why would the president of France call a vice presidential candidate a few days out?!” And here’s where it starts to get really interesting.

Sarah Palin speaking to Oprah Winfrey

Previews of her upcoming Oprah November 16th interview haven’t been so well received either and seem to open up another can of worms when it comes to her recent feuding with the father of her grandchild Levi Johnston.

Johnston has recently claimed that Sarah Palin has been interfering with the arrangements he and Bristol have regarding visitation with his son which has made it difficult to see his son if she is involved. He also stated that Sarah Palin isn’t the person she pretends to be and that if need be to get his time with his son, he’ll tell all that he knows about Sarah and her behavior as governor.

Johnston has been in New York busy with his photo shoot for Playgirl and spending a lot of time doing interviews over the last two weeks, meeting with Donald Trump, receiving an unearned award and busy talking with Inside Edition.

Levi tells Inside Edition that Palin’s laugh at the beginning of Oprah’s question about him proves the answer that followed was untrue.

The New York Times Book Review:

All in all, Ms. Palin emerges from “Going Rogue” as an eager player in the blame game, thoroughly ungrateful toward the McCain campaign for putting her on the national stage. As for the McCain campaign, it often feels like a desperate and cynical operation, willing to make a risky Hail Mary pass in order to try to score a tactical win, instead of making a considered judgment as to who might be genuinely qualified to sit a heartbeat away from the Oval Office.

The Huffinton Post has also obtained e-mails from the McCain campaign both sent to and by Sarah Palin while Vice Presidential candidate. The e-mails further confirm that Sarah Palin has a real problem telling the truth.

The Associated Press has been busy fact checking some of Palin’s statements.
Here’s just a snippet of what they found so far: These are just a few of the inconsistencies, but you can follow the link to read the rest by following the link

Palin goes adrift, at times, on more contemporary issues, too. She criticizes President Barack Obama for pushing through a bailout package that actually was achieved by his Republican predecessor George W. Bush — a package she seemed to support at the time.

PALIN: Says she made frugality a point when traveling on state business as Alaska governor, asking “only” for reasonably priced rooms and not “often” going for the “high-end, robe-and-slippers” hotels.

THE FACTS: Although travel records indicate she usually opted for less-pricey hotels while governor, Palin and daughter Bristol stayed five days and four nights at the $707.29-per-night Essex House luxury hotel (robes and slippers come standard) overlooking New York City’s Central Park for a five-hour women’s leadership conference in October 2007. With air fare, the cost to Alaska was well over $3,000. Event organizers said Palin asked if she could bring her daughter. The governor billed her state more than $20,000 for her children’s travel, including to events where they had not been invited, and in some cases later amended expense reports to specify that they had been on official business.
___
PALIN: Boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations, mostly from first-time givers, and turned back large checks from big donors if her campaign perceived a conflict of interest.

THE FACTS: Of the roughly $1.3 million she raised for her primary and general election campaigns for governor, more than half came from people and political action committees giving at least $500, according to an AP analysis of her campaign finance reports. The maximum that individual donors could give was $1,000; $2,000 for a PAC. Of the rest, about $76,000 came from Republican Party committees.

She accepted $1,000 each from a state senator and his wife and $30 from a state representative in the weeks after the two Republican lawmakers’ offices were raided by the FBI as part of an investigation into a powerful Alaska oilfield services company. After AP reported those donations during the presidential campaign, she gave a comparative sum to charity.
___
PALIN: Rails against taxpayer-financed bailouts, which she attributes to Obama. She recounts telling daughter Bristol that to succeed in business, “you’ll have to be brave enough to fail.”

THE FACTS: Palin is blurring the lines between Obama’s stimulus plan — a $787 billion package of tax cuts, state aid, social programs and government contracts — and the federal bailout that Republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for and President George W. Bush signed.

Palin’s views on bailouts appeared to evolve as McCain’s vice presidential running mate. In September 2008, she said “taxpayers cannot be looked to as the bailout, as the solution, to the problems on Wall Street.” A week later, she said “ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy.”

During the vice presidential debate in October, Palin praised McCain for being “instrumental in bringing folks together” to pass the $700 billion bailout. After that, she said “it is a time of crisis and government did have to step in.”
___
PALIN: Says Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession than the one that appears to be ending now, and “showed us how to get out of one. If you want real job growth, cut capital gains taxes and slay the death tax once and for all.”

THE FACTS: The estate tax, which some call the death tax, was not repealed under Reagan and capital gains taxes are lower now than when Reagan was president. Economists overwhelmingly say the current recession is far worse. The recession Reagan faced lasted for 16 months; this one is in its 23rd month. The recession of the early 1980s did not have a financial meltdown. Unemployment peaked at 10.8 percent, worse than the October 2009 high of 10.2 percent, but the jobless rate is still expected to climb.
___
PALIN: She says her team overseeing the development of a natural gas pipeline set up an open, competitive bidding process that allowed any company to compete for the right to build a 1,715-mile pipeline to bring natural gas from Alaska to the Lower 48.

THE FACTS: Palin characterized the pipeline deal the same way before an AP investigation found her team crafted terms that favored only a few independent pipeline companies and ultimately benefited a company with ties to her administration, TransCanada Corp. Despite promises and legal guidance not to talk directly with potential bidders during the process, Palin had meetings or phone calls with nearly every major candidate, including TransCanada.
___
PALIN: Writes about a city councilman in Wasilla, Alaska, who owned a garbage truck company and tried to push through an ordinance requiring residents of new subdivisions to pay for trash removal instead of taking it to the dump for free — this to illustrate conflicts of interest she stood against as a public servant.

THE FACTS: As Wasilla mayor, Palin pressed for a special zoning exception so she could sell her family’s $327,000 house, then did not keep a promise to remove a potential fire hazard on the property.

She asked the city council to loosen rules for snow machine races when she and her husband owned a snow machine store, and cast a tie-breaking vote to exempt taxes on aircraft when her father-in-law owned one. But she stepped away from the table in 1997 when the council considered a grant for the Iron Dog snow machine race in which her husband competes.
___
PALIN: Welcomes last year’s Supreme Court decision deciding punitive damages for victims of the nation’s largest oil spill tragedy, the Exxon Valdez disaster, stating it had taken 20 years to achieve victory. As governor, she says, she’d had the state argue in favor of the victims, and she says the court’s ruling went “in favor of the people.” Finally, she writes, Alaskans could recover some of their losses.

THE FACTS: That response is at odds with her reaction at the time to the ruling, which resolved the long-running case by reducing punitive damages for victims to $500 million from $2.5 billion. Environmentalists and plaintiffs’ lawyers decried the ruling as a slap at the victims and Palin herself said she was “extremely disappointed.” She said the justices had gutted a jury decision favoring higher damage awards, the Anchorage Daily News reported. “It’s tragic that so many Alaska fishermen and their families have had their lives put on hold waiting for this decision,” she said, noting many had died “while waiting for justice.”
___
PALIN: Describing her resistance to federal stimulus money, Palin describes Alaska as a practical, libertarian haven of independent Americans who don’t want “help” from government busybodies.

THE FACTS: Alaska is also one of the states most dependent on federal subsidies, receiving much more assistance from Washington than it pays in federal taxes. A study for the nonpartisan Tax Foundation found that in 2005, the state received $1.84 for every dollar it sent to Washington.

Reports are also coming out now that Palin’s co-author has written some pretty offensive things in the past as well.

Then we have author Geoffery Dunne’s take on Palin’s book and it isn’t any prettier. Dunne is also in the process of completing a book on Sarah Palin’s life and has been spending a lot of time in Alaska. This again is only a portion of what he found. Follow the link to see other finds.

The Cover Byline: Palin didn’t write the book by herself. Most books with known ghostwriters list their co-author’s name on the cover. In this case it was Lynn Vincent (a well-known homophobe). Going Rogue does not.

Going Rogue features Palin’s obsession with Katie Couric and characterizes the CBS anchor as “badgering.” Palin refused to prep for the Couric interview because she was more concerned about her popularity in Alaska than about what was best for the campaign. Was it really badgering to ask what books or periodicals Palin read? Palin further claims that Couric suffered from low self-esteem. In fact, according to those close to Palin, it’s the former governor who suffers from low self-esteem and frequently projects that onto other women.

Palin asserts that there was a “jaded aura” around McCain’s political advisors once she entered the campaign. In fact, McCain’s aides bent over backwards to protect Palin and to try to get her up to speed on international affairs. In addition to not knowing whether or not Africa was a continent, according to sources in the McCain campaign, Palin also didn’t understand the difference between England and Great Britain. And much, much more.

Palin contends to have been saddled with legal bills of more than $500,000 resulting from what she calls “frivolous” ethics complaints filed against her. The lion’s share of those bills resulted from the ethics complaint she filed against herself in a legal maneuver to sidestep the Troopergate charges being brought against her by the bipartisan Alaska Legislative Council.

Palin rather astonishingly claims that she was saddled with $50,000 in bills for the legal fees associated with her vice-presidential vetting. A) She was not vetted; B) A McCain campaign advisor says this is “categorically untrue.”

Palin states that she found out only “minutes” before John McCain’s concession speech that she would not be allowed to make remarks of her own introducing McCain. In fact, she had been told at least three times that she would not be allowed to give the speech and kept lying about it in the hopes of creating some last-minute chaos that would allow her to assume the dais.

Palin asserts that her effort to award a license for a natural gas transmission line was turning a “pipe dream” into a pipeline. Although she claimed otherwise in her speech at the GOP convention, there is no pipeline. It remains a pipe dream.

And that’s just for starters.

Andrew Sullivan has learned from excerpts in the book that Sarah Palin was obsessed with his blog the Daily Dish and wanted to sue him for some of his posts regarding her fifth pregnancy and the birth of her son Trig. Palin’s obsession with Sullivan and his blog was reported first here.

Sarah Palin speaks to Barbara Walters

Ms. Palin was particularly angry at bloggers and the media, associates said, for speculation that her baby Trig was really the child of Bristol, her daughter.

At one point, according to people familiar with the discussions, Ms. Palin considered pursuing a libel suit against at least one blogger, the Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan. Ms. Palin decided against such a move because of the publicity it would bring.

Mr. Sullivan, in response, said asking “factually verifiable questions is obviously not libel.”

A spokeswoman for Ms. Palin didn’t respond to email requests seeking comment.

We also have a preview of her previously recorded interviews with Barbara Walters that will air next week as she kicks off her book tour. One has to ask why a woman who repeatedly asked the media to leaver her children alone and only focus on her, then why are two of the children sitting right beside her during the interview?

The interviews with Barbara and Oprah are the only mainstream interviews that Palin will be doing on the book tour. All others that she will be interviewing with like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, BFF Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly and the like won’t challenge her or discuss subjects they know she’s weak on. Do you think we’ll see Piper or Willow sitting beside her for those interviews?

Did Sarah Palin bring those girls to sit front row at Oprah and right next to her on the couch with Barbara to stave off any serious discussions are personal questions?

Was Sarah dishonest in her answer to Barbara Walters when Barbara asked if Sarah Palin and her husband Todd knew that Bristol was sexually active before she informed then she was pregnant?

Could it have something to do with this post Just a Hunch on Romney and Palin: Is there a Trig Truther Story on The Horizon? at the right wing blog It’s a Kwazy Life

Is this why someone who obviously still considers themself to be a serious contender of the political world bring their young children to interviews, pretty them up and then sit them on the couch right next to you?

Meanwhile those is Alaska have also been busy pouring over Palin’s book Going Rogue and verifying her claims and statements from the book.

Blue Oasis – Has an analysis of how the books Sarah from Alaska, The Persecution of Sarah Palin, and Going Rogue handle the topic of the ethics complaints filed against her, the state records requests, and her tangle with the Alaska Public Offices Commission – No titilating gossip, but instead issues that matter a whole lot more. There’s no one better than Linda Kellen Biegel, former AK state employee at picking apart the details and giving a great analysis of this tangled mess.

Shannyn Moore: Just a Girl from Homer – One of the plaintiffs in the Exxon Valdez oil spill case, she notes, “So Sarah was against the decision before she couldn’t remember it before she was for it. And now, courtesy of Going Rogue, Sarah Palin manages to insult and injure Alaskans who will never be made whole with yet another one of her documented lies.” Videos included.

The Anchorage Daily News – Too many out there are watching and waiting for Palin’s emails that were requested via state records requests, to be revealed. The law is clear, and the state is breaking it – over, and over, and over. Palin is gone but now the big mess she left has been dumped squarely in the lap of the next administration who continues to stall. Paul Jenkins speculates that “enterprising young lawyers will have to haul the state into court for failure to obey its own law.”

While we can’t feel very confident in much of what Sarah Palin and her ghostwriter present as fact in her autobiography Going Rogue, one thing we can be sure of…………….the next week will be a crazy one. Sarah’s book comes out with Levi’s photo spread coming out the same day, while Howard Stern, Joy Behart and John Stewart court Levi to visit their shows. Sarah is already on her facebook page complaining

We’ve heard 11 writers are engaged in this opposition research, er, “fact checking” research! Imagine that – 11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to “fact check” what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc.

36 months and $750,000, for, according to former VECO CEO Bill Allen’s new hot shot lawyer George Terwilliger, Allen’s runaway passion for former Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski’s secretly negotiated Petroleum Profits Tax (PPT).  Terwilliger suggested to US District Judge John Sedgwick that Allen’s passion clouded his judgment and got the better of him, so much so, that he bribed Alaska legislators.

Remember the beloved PPT? That was the industrious scheme concocted by Murkowski and The Oil Producers behind closed doors.  Alaska’s 4^th Estate failed to explain it.  Your morning newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News, never once called the PPT a NET PROFITS TAX!  Nor did the ADN ever fulfill their social and unwritten pact to educate the public on something so basic, yet so vital!                       

The net profits game was not unique to the oil business.  Corporate film studios employed it as a way of dangling a carrot in front of aspiring, young Hollywood creative types. For decades, it was standard practice; studios would use creative net profits accounting practices to siphon profits from successful blockbuster films and then show on paper how much money they lost.  5% of nothing is still nothing.  Promised net profits were just empty pipe dreams.  The Federal Courts finally got involved and the net profits scheme became a nefarious thing of the past…at least in the film business.

In Frank Murkowski’s Alaska, The Producers dusted off and resurrected Hollywood’s net profits scheme and changed the name to the PPT. The PPT would forever tie Alaska’s primary revenue stream to the efficiencies of the oil producers while simultaneously incenting them to be inefficient; that is, the higher their costs (INEFFICIENCY) they could deduct, the less their royalty payments would be (INCENTIVE) and therefore the less revenue for the state of Alaska (INDUSTRIOUS SCHEME). 

Despite the tandem of strong-handed lobbying from Governor Murkowski combined with Bill Allen’s bribery of state lawmakers, and Ted Stevens yet-to-be-indicted son, Ben, presiding over the senate, the Alaska Legislature barely passed HB 3001 (the PPT) on August 10, 2006.  Murkowski signed the bill into law nine days later.  But, just like in Hollywood, the FEDS got involved and uncovered the plot.  And, given the money at stake-hundreds of millions; in fact billions of dollars would flow either into state coffers or inflate the already record-high Producers’ profits.  Had the PPT not been thrown out, the promised net profits would have literally become empty pipe dreams for Alaskans. 

Just eleven days after the PPT became law, Allen was with Republican Senator Fred Dyson heading to breakfast when they were confronted by the FBI.  Allen claimed during his sentencing statement to Judge Sedwick that after listening to the damning tapes he immediately decided to quit drinking and cooperate with the FEDS.  The next day, August 31, lawmakers’ offices in Juneau were raided by the FBI.  Politics in Alaska forever changed.

It’s been a while since the federal courthouse busied itself with anything related to the Alaska Corrupt Bastards Club.  Blame the Bush DOJ and the botched prosecution of the slam dunk trial of former Senator Ted Stevens.  Since the last time Bill Allen passed through courthouse security, he hired an infamous new gun.  George Terwilliger was George W. Bush’s key lawyer during the fraudulent Florida Recount following the 2000 election.  Remember the Brooks Brothers faux riot???  Yep; an associate of the Bush Crime Family right here in Anchorage representing Bill Allen at his sentencing.

36 Months and $750,000…

That’s the price Bill Allen will pay for his orchestrating the Corrupt Bastards Club.  Given the sentencing guidelines meted out by Judge Sedwick, 36 months was just 5 months shy of the maximum recommended by the federal government.  $750,000 was, in fact, the maximum fine Sedwick could impose, and, according to Sedwick, he would’ve imposed a higher fine if he could have because Allen’s crimes were motivated by greed.  And besides, that’s how neighbors do one another.

But, you know, according to Allen’s counsel, the amount of money involved in this case was only “lunch money” compared to the billions being spent on health care lobbying in Washington DC.

I’ve attended most of the CBC trials: Tom Anderson, Pete Kott and Vic Kohring.  I listened and watched enough audio and video surveillance tapes of drunken, corrupt legislators jockeying for positions of favor (read ASS KISSING) with Mr. Allen to last me, oh, I don’t know…at least 36 months.

These trials have been nothing short of high drama and tragic entertainment.  I laughed out loud at Pete Kott confusing Viagra with Ambien and punctuating every sentence with a boisterous Larry-the-Cable-Guy “Get ‘er DONE!”  And his desire to be a prison warden in Barbados was irony at its finest.  Watching Vic Kohring on trial made me want to just pack him a lunch and give him a sandwich.  He always reminded me of that really big 8^th grader that shaves and ought to be a senior.  There were also things that surprised me.  I caught myself feeling this strange and surprising grandfather-like affection and empathy for fallen oil-services tycoon, Bill Allen…the same Bill Allen who published the Anchorage Times-an honest diatribe in that they never pretended to be anything other than a right wing rag; a rag I passionately disagreed with.

Given Allen’s age, 72, his health, and his immediate accountability and cooperation with the federal prosecutors, I understand Judge Sedwick’s 36-month sentence.  I have no idea how they come up with those guidelines.  I do know it wasn’t the minimum sentence nor was it the maximum.  I believe, however, it was probably a reasonable sentence-all things considered.  Compared to the reality deficient and forever unaccountable Tom Anderson, Pete Kott and Vic Kohring, Bill Allen seemed saintly.   AND…Bill Allen never swore to uphold the public trust-something that Judge Sedwick failed to mention in justification of his relatively light sentence.  A conspiracy of this magnitude requires extensive corruption on both sides; the bribers-Bill Allen and his family, former VECO Vice President Rick Smith and the bribees-Kott, Kohring, Senator B, Bruce Weyhrauch, Beverly Masek and John Cowdery; it’s kind of like being single and cheating with someone who is married.  Who made a promise and took a vow? 

That matters.  The unmarried party is still immoral, but the married person wreaks more havoc.  Of course, both are corrupt.  In this case, the unmarried adulterer is Bill Allen and Co.  The married vow takers and promise breakers are our legislators that swore an oath to uphold the Alaska Constitution and the public trust.

These trials have been an ugly stain on Alaska’s government and oil industry.  And, judging by the prosecution’s comments in court this past week, we aren’t yet through.   Ben Stevens has been implicated in recordings but has not yet been indicted.  Bruce Weyhrauch received a delay courtesy of the 9^th circuit court. Alaska Congressman Don Young has paid massive attorney fees with his campaign trust.  There are others and yet even more questions.  What is going on with Jim Clark?  Who is he cooperating with and implicating? 

And, more than anything else, the thing that nags and gnaws at me is the damning audio tape of ConocoPhillips President Jim Bowles instructing Bill Allen to get the “…House to go ahead and gavel out and finish up and get them out of town…” at the very moment the PPT was in danger and facing tough opposition.  To me, the CBC points upwards from Bill Allen.  It leads to The Producers; ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and BP.  It was The Producers who were full-court pressing Allen to do their dirty bidding. 

As a result of the corrupted PPT, the Palin Administration proposed Alaska’s Clear and Equitable Share (ACES).  Palin’s initial draft had many of the same problems as the PPT.  It was a net profits tax with unlimited deductions-contradicting her campaign promise to replace the PPT with a gross profits tax.  The ACES bill that Governor Palin signed into law on December 19, 2007 was completely remodeled and tweaked by key legislative Democrats; Senators Hollis French, Bill Wielechowski, and Kim Elton, along with Representatives Les Gara and Beth Kerttula worked long hours to insure ACES would balance “maximum benefit for Alaskans” with Producer investment incentives.  As a result, the Owner-State of Alaska immediately began earning its fair share of its resource wealth.  Ironically, those same Democratic Legislators that helped Palin pass marquee legislation became the target of her ire from the time she was on the campaign trail until the day she quit.  The McCain Campaign sent the “truth squad” to Alaska to viciously attack her former allies as they tried to understand and unravel Troopergate.

The local right wing talk radio jocks that dominate Alaska’s public airwaves and the Oil Producers have been crying foul ever since:

“We’re taxing ourselves out of jobs!”

“Investment is drying up on the North Slope!”

“We’ll never get a gas line!” 

“Alaska’s closed for business!”

“Last one to leave turn out the lights!”

“We’re growing government!” 

“We’re chasing investment out of the state!”

“We must repeal ACES before it’s too late!”

“SOCIALISTS!”

Well, once again, the right wing fear mongers were caught LYING.  We have had nearly two years under ACES and guess what?  Not only did the sky not fall, but, according to the October 18, 2009 issue of Petroleum News, at least one producer, ConocoPhillips, is doing more than just fine under ACES:

Alaska oil and gas production makes up about 12 percent of ConocoPhillips’ worldwide output.  In the first quarter of this year, Alaska operations earned the company $240 million, or 29 percent of its worldwide exploration and production income.

In the second quarter, ConocoPhillips had $725 million in E&P worldwide earnings: More than 55 percent of that, $404 million, came from its Alaska business.

I may be Just A Girl From Homer, but when 12% of your business accounts for 29% of your income, I’d say that part of your business-ALASKA-is doing pretty well!  And when that same 12% of your business accounts for more than 55% of your earnings in the next quarter…well I’d say that’s a pretty spectacular trend-or as my pop likes to say, “better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick”; especially given the worst worldwide recession since The Great Depression! 

Make no mistake.  These right wing radio talk jocks are nothing more than oil company shills.  They aren’t interested in Alaska’s constitutional mandate; that Alaska’s resources be developed for the maximum benefit of the people.  They sit there, day after day and pollute the public airwaves with their anti-Alaskan, misinformed, fear-mongering drivel.  They push their GOP ideology and they’re hardly entertaining-shilling rarely is.  They’ve basically morphed themselves into an interactive infomercial for the hard-line right-complete with callers.  It reminds me of those fake half hour gold informercials.

The best negotiated deals are those that are mutually beneficial.  ACES, clearly, is a win-win.  It’s good for Alaska and it’s good for The Producers.  Anyone who says different is either just a whore with oil dripping down their chin, or The Producers themselves.  The truth and proof lie in the income statements.

Now…how long, if ever, till the FEDS raid The Producers’ downtown offices?

GOP candidates Senator John McCain and Governor Sarah Palin on the 2008 presidential campaign trail.

John McCain’s duplicitous defense of his 2008 GOP running mate Sarah Palin this past weekend is as dishonest as it is shameful. He knows better–but for reasons that are rooted deeply in McCain’s peculiar sense of chivalry and his political self-interest, he has refused to come clean about Palin with the American people.

“There are fundamental facts that cannot be denied,” he asserted on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “When we selected, or asked, Sarah Palin to be my running mate, it energized our party. We were ahead in the polls, until the stock market crashed.”

The implication is that the Republicans would have won were it not for the economic collapse that took place on September 15.

Many McCain and Palin operatives in the aftermath of the election have blamed the economy for their loss. That’s like blaming a lake in the middle of the 18th fairway for costing one a golf match. The lake doesn’t cost you the match–driving your ball into it does.

The economy collapsed for the Democrats, too. They had the same hazards in their fairway as the Republicans. Moreover, the economy was not Obama’s strong suit. He didn’t play well to white working class voters and he had a hard time articulating how he was going to address the banking collapse.

But let’s take a look at some “fundamental facts” about McCain and the economy:

• In 2005, McCain told the Wall Street Journal: “I’m going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated.”
• In 2007, McCain told the Boston Globe: “The issue of economics is not something I’ve understood as well as I should.”
• On August 20, only days before he selected Palin, McCain told the press he did not know how many houses he owned.
• On the morning of September 15, the day on which the McCain-Palin campaign tanked in the polls, John McCain said: “Our economy, I think still–the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” (Even Rick Davis, McCain’s ever-loyal campaign manager, said he wished that McCain had never made that remark.) The following day, McCain’s economic adviser Carly Fiorina said that Sarah Palin was “not fit” to run a Fortune 500 company.

While McCain was undertaking his hackneyed “suspension of his campaign” and rushing back to Washington, Palin was nowhere to be seen. The campaign did not want to unleash her on the American people. And when McCain finally arrived in the capital, his Republican colleagues in Congress scattered. As it turned out, John McCain had very few friends in Congress on either side of the isle.

And what did Palin have to say about the economy? Here, in her immortal words, are Palin’s response to Katie Couric’s question about the federal bailout package:

That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in. Where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the health care reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh, it’s got to be about job creation, too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade — we have got to see trade as opportunity, not as, uh, competitive, um, scary thing, but one in five jobs created in the trade sector today. We’ve got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation.

I would hope that John McCain would have the decency to re-read those words and follow his running mate’s eyes as she delivered them. Comforting they were not. Tina Fey did not have to change a single word.

While McCain may have a difficult time accepting “the fundamental facts” of the 2008 election, the Obama insiders who conducted polls about Palin know what happened.

Joel Benson, Obama’s chief pollster, noted that after Palin’s devastating performance with Couric, “Palin went from having, in our poll, the highest favorable/unfavorable ratio to the worst of the four principals. By the time she got to the vice-presidential debate, in our polling, her negatives were almost as high as her positives.” In other words, stick a fork in it.

One former key McCain campaign strategist has called his colleagues’ excuses about Palin and the economy “intellectually dishonest.” So be it.

Did Palin give a “bounce” to the McCain campaign in the early weeks of September? Absolutely. Did her balloon come crashing back to earth once the American people caught on to her act? You betcha.

It’s time for John McCain to tell the truth about his campaign and, rather than blame his own failures on “the stock market crash,” to accept responsibility for the failures of his economic credibility and the selection of his running mate. He’s yet to address the real “fundamental facts” of the 2008 campaign.

Geoffrey Dunn
The Huffington Post

The Movement
Ok, so the issue is whether the President of the United States, Barak H. Obama is a true American citizen… Are you serious?

Next to the Tea Bag Party, this is the craziest movement that I have ever seen. Yet it still has a huge and growing following of the fringe and wing nuts from around the country. Mostly due to the media’s total aversion to facts and reality and near infinite greed for ratings, as well as the Red-Rock Conservatives, who have sore-loser-itis over losing the election to the Democrats this election? It is insane the way Conservatives politicians, potentials, and icons like Liz Cheney, Gordon Liddy, or the Senator who wants to introduce a bill to require presidential candidates to produce their birth certificate etc… It is beyond the beyond smart politicking of the electorate—it’s just stupid.

What is really going on is that the GOP is trying to get out in front of the movement, so they will not miss the PR gain as they did with the Tea Bag Parties. Liz Cheney is trying to raise her profile to get ready to run for office, by admitting that her father, Dick (Darth Siddius) and his apprentice, GWB turned the country over to an undocumented alien to weaken and destroy America. The whole thing sounds like three (3) bad George Lucas prequels…

The Equation

The entire premise of the conspiracy theory and its fatal flaw is that it excludes President Obama’s mother, who was an American. Obama could have been born on Pluto as long as his mother was a natural born citizen, then he is one it is the law. Therefore, in order for the conspiracy to be true, then you have to either prove she is not his mother (good luck) or concentrate on his Kenyan father. This brings to light a host of questions that makes one wonder what prejudices hidden at the core of this conspiracy theory.

What is astounding on this issue was Lou Dobbs; a man who has railed against the non-enforcement of the immigration laws has gotten behind it. I mean as much as Lou talks about immigration reform you would think he actually read the law itself…(i.e. a child born to an American parent, in this case the Presidents mother, is an American citizen by right of blood ( jus sanguine) Et tu Lou, Et

Sarah Palin to step down as Governor

We could only wish.  But as for ‘No More Sarah Palin’ as governor of the state of Alaska, our wish has come true.  Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement today that she will be stepping down as the governor of Alaska at the end of this month.  She made a brief statement and took no questions afterwards.  Of course no one expected this to come, as she would be up for re-election next year, but the time spent after being on the John McCain ticket as the vice-presidential nominee has been tumultuous at best and this move would also free up time as 2012 rolls around.

Sarah Palin stepped up on the national scene almost a year ago when the GOP candidate for president, John McCain, choose the first term governor of Alaska as his runningmate.  Every since then America has seen nearly day to day coverage of the darling of the Republican party.  Election day came and went, they lost the nomination, but she did not lose her limelight.  After November there was several instances of Palin-mania rearing its head, whether it was rejecting stimulus money, ethics complaints, or some personal Palin family drama.  We were even treated to more Palin when just a few days ago some new information of McCain campaign infighting show how frustrated she was back during the campaign.

So now with Palin resigning, what does that mean for her political future?  Well she says she’s doing this for the state of Alaska to avoid the “politics as usual,” because nothing is more important to her outside of her family and faith.  We all know of the talk that’s been rumored of a possible bid for president in 2012, but does this hurt her chances or increase it?  It certainly gives her room to campaign in the early primary states in 2011.  But this latest move has some worried.  What if we had elected her vice-president.  Would she have quit early in that position as well?  What if she gets elected as the nominee in 2012, are we to expect her to step down early then too? 

Not for nothin’, but a year ago, I like a million other people would have said that the chances of Sarah Palin becoming president are just as good as us getting a black president.  Crazier things have happened, I mean Bush got elected twice.  In four years if we’re saying President Palin, can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Update: I changed my headline from “New Palin Emails Suggest She Tried to Get McCain Campaign to Lie” to “New Palin Emails Show She Tried to Get McCain Campaign to Lie” because so many people challenged the original headline.  The emails do more than suggest she was trying to get the campaign to lie.  She clearly was.  My mistake.

So the facts are: Gov. Palin was not a member of this third-party (“Alaska First — Alaska Always”) that wants Alaskans to get a vote on whether or not the state can secede from the U.S. But her husband was a long-time member, and at least two AIP officials recall her attending the 1994 convention, though she says she did not attend.

A new set of Sarah Palin emails has been leaked that could do serious damage to her long-term political prospects. CBS News has obtained a string of communications, between Palin and McCain chief strategist Steve Schmidt, that suggests that the Alaska Governor tried to quash the story of her husband’s involvement with the secessionist Alaska Independence Party with an incredible assertion:

“(Secession)’s not part of their platform and (Todd) was only a ‘member’ bc independent alaskans too often check that ‘Alaska Independent’ box on voter registrations thinking it just means non partisan,” Palin wrote. “He caught his error when changing our address and checked the right box. I still want it fixed.”

Schmidt’s reply was unequivocal:

“Secession,” he wrote. “It is their entire reason for existence. A cursory examination of the website shows that the party exists for the purpose of seceding from the union. That is the stated goal on the front page of the web site. Our records indicate that todd was a member for seven years. If this is incorrect then we need to understand the discrepancy. The statement you are suggesting be released would be innaccurate.

Palin has weathered political firestorms greater than this, but the suggestion that she tried to lie so nakedly is damaging in a way that wardrobe malfunctions and fumbled interviews are not. The artlessness of the excuse, too, fits the narrative of Palin as less-than-brilliant.

The real story here, however, is the question of who leaked these emails, and why now? The timing coincides closely with another Palin email story and with a scathing Vanity Fair article about her. It sure seems like a campaign is underway to finish Palin’s political career off, once and for all.

The list of suspects is long, especially since Palin copied so many people on her responses to Schmidt, but the specific identity of the leaker isn’t that important. This is just the latest volley in what I see as an ongoing effort by the GOP to wrest influence from Sarah Palin. The catalyst here may have been all of the attention Palin received, much of it sympathetic, during her recent feud with David Letterman.

Rival factions close to the McCain campaign have been feuding since last fall over Palin, usually waging the battle in the shadows with anonymous quotes.

Now, however, some of the most well-known names in Republican politics are going on-the-record with personal attacks and blame-casting.

Source:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0609/24392.html

This morning on Meet the Press, David Gregory ran a video clip of GOP strategist Mike Murphy’s appearance on the show from March 1. Murphy was the campaign manager for Sen. John McCain’s 2000 effort. On the future of the GOP, Murphy said:

The country is changing. Ronald Reagan won in 1980 with 51% of the vote. We all worship Ronald Reagan. But if that election had been held with the current demographics in America today, Ronald Reagan would have gotten 47 percent of the vote. The math is changing. Anglo vote is 74 percent now not 89. And if we don’t modernize conservatism, we are going to have a party of 25 percent of the vote going to Limbaugh rallies, joining every applause line, ripping the furniture up, we’re going to be in permanent minority status.

Roll tape forward to this morning when David Gregory showed Murphy’s remarks to Sen. John McCain and asked him, “How does conservatism modernize itself, how does the party get back to power?” McCain said:

The party of ideas, the part of inclusivesness, uh – outreach to other ethic aspects of the American electorate, in my part of the country, especially Hispanic voters. We have to recruit and elect Hispanics to office. We have to welcome new ideas. And there are — you know — a lot of people complain about divisions within the Republican Party. That’s good right now. Let’s let a 1,000 flowers bloom. Let’s have different clashes of ideas, sharing the same principles and goals. Look, if we were having this show in 1982, the Republican Party was dead. In 1994, the Democrat (sic) Party was dead. Right now — err, look, but — there’s a great resilience in American politics and I have –I’m very optimistic about the future of the Republican Party, if we do the right things.

In my view, this exchange shows just how out of touch John McCain is and explains why he lost last year. Murphy, love him or hate him, is exactly right — the demographics of the country are changing. The U.S. electorate is becoming less white while the voting populations for Hispanics, African-Americans and Asian-Americans are increasing. Yet, in the 2008 election, the Republican share of the Hispanic vote dropped to 33%  from an all-time high of 40% in 2004.

For his part, in this run on sentence of an answer to Gregory’s question, McCain seems to accept Murphy’s diagonosis of the problem. Fine. But with his actions in the Senate, particularly since his defeat, McCain make me question his willingness to embrace the “new ideas” he proposes as the solution the GOP’s demise.  Witness McCain’s floor speeches and remarks about the President’s stimulus plan and budget. Since November, it’s just more of the same: saying no. Where is Sen. McCain’s spending alternative? Where are his new ideas?

Apparently Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has yet another beef with the McCain campaign. The staffers assigned to her didn’t pray with her prior to her debate against Vice President Joe Biden, then a U.S. Senator from Delaware.

Speaking before a GOP dinner in Alaska on Friday, Gov. Palin said:

So I’m looking around for somebody to pray with, I just need maybe a little help, maybe a little extra,” she said of the moments before the debate. “And the McCain campaign, love ‘em, you know, they’re a lot of people around me, but nobody I could find that I wanted to hold hands with and pray.

What’s interesting from the video of Gov. Palin telling the anecdote is that she seems to believe that her debate with Vice President Biden was an event where she needed God to speak through her. (The implication of course is that God wouldn’t speak through her without prayer or that if God granted her prayer, Vice President wouldn’t be so blessed.)

Not only is this bad politics — is God really a Republican, a Democrat or for that matter, an American? — it’s also bad theology in my view.

Personally, I am someone who takes Jesus’s words in Matthew 6: 5-6. I wish Gov. Palin did. Jesus said: 

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

On our way to Atlanta for Real World PR EARLY Friday morning, while listening to Michael Buble and talking with @laurenzahn and @rachel_366, I wondered what the day would bring.  I did not know what to expect and was excited that I was going to such a big event.  After parking and checking in, we grabbed delicious muffins and fruit and gathered around circular tables in the ballroom of the Loudermilk Center in downtown Atlanta.  Since there were six Clemson students that came together, we had room at our table for three more friends.

The first girl who asked to sit with us was Kate Stice from FSU.  After talking to Kate for a few minutes, we learned that she recently was hired at a PR boutique firm in DT Atlanta, she traveled the world (20 different countries) for five months after graduating, and she had an outgoing personality that drew us all into her stories and comments.  The last two ladies who filled our table up were Ally Edge and Laura Mealor of Valdosta in Georgia.  Both are recent graduates who are looking for jobs around the Atlanta area, and Laura is engaged!

During breakfast, the president of PRSA Georgia, Mike Neumeier, introduced the panel that talked about the impact of social media on politics.  The panelists were all part of the CNN organization: Victor Hernandez (Director of Coverage, CNN U.S.), Lila King (Senior Producer of User Participation, CNN.com and iReport.com) and Jennifer Martin, Director of PR (New Media and Digital Networks, CNN).  The panelists talked about the connection with politics and social media in the ‘08 election.  Here are a few of the questions and the most important parts of the answers that I remember:

1. How did social media differ between the ‘04 election and the ‘08 election? Victor: In 2004 the Internet was used for new media in presidential campaigns for fund raising, blogging, and grassroots.  Now, it’s evolved into real time updates connecting people with real time events.  Lila: The rise of social journalism is a major difference between the two elections- people are telling the story as they see it and giving a new perspective.  Jen: A major difference is in ‘04, the candidates were pushing their messages.  For the ‘08 campaign, fans and followers are pushing the message through social media.
2. What were your AHA ideas that you got from social media? Lila:  Saw a new way for news coverage and found out what questions citizens wanted to ask.  Victor: Saw that Twitter was used in different ways by each campaign.  Obama “brought people with him” on the campaign and McCain rarely updated.
3. What was the social media tool that advanced the most? Victor: WiFi (3-G Network)
4. What is the greatest social media tool?  Victor: Social media applications are like buying new running shoes- you have to try them on and run with them before you know whether they are the right fit.  Lila: Tools that let people talk to one another.  Jen: Tools that bridge people together are the best.
5. TV vs. Online journalism thoughts? Jen: most people are now watching TV while reading news on their laptops.  TV is known as lean back media while Internet is more of a lean forward type of media.  For example, people were watching President Obama’s speech on TV while commenting on it on the Internet.
6. What are the major contributions of citizen journalism?  Lila: CNN is learning that they can get more information from citizens because they depend on the relationships with their viewers.  Now, it’s more of a two-way type of communication.

So… go test out your new running shoes (social media) and find the best ones that fit you! Below is a song that will pump you up when you find that perfect fit.

Remember when the McCain campaign had that garage sale a few months back and sold two BlackBerries with hundreds of GOP contacts still saved on them? It may have seemed like a silly blunder to those who heard about it at the time, but it turns out that most of us are just as careless with our mobile phones and handheld devices as the McCain staffers were with theirs .  Read Here

What happened to John McCain this fall?  Where was the real guy?  Was it Sarah Palin?  Listening to Steven Schmidt too much?  Was it kowtowing to the right wing of the Republican Party to get the nomination, then not figuring out a way to tack back to the center?  In any case, the real McCain was absent this fall.  Had he been there, this might have been a closer election.  I still think he would have lost, considering how much Bush poisoned the Republican pool, but it might have been closer.

An illustration of the point — an article in today’s Washington Post:

A joke made its way around the Capitol yesterday: How do you know the 2008 election is really over? Because John McCain is causing trouble for Republicans again.

Two and a half months removed from his defeat in the race for the presidency, colleagues say, McCain bears more resemblance to the unpredictable and frequently bipartisan lawmaker they have served with for decades than the man who ran an often scathing campaign against Barack Obama. In some instances, he’s even carrying water for his former rival.

“Mac is back!” one of his devoted friends in the Senate declared as McCain walked into the chamber Wednesday to deliver his first speech of the 111th Congress: a blunt admonishment of Republicans delaying Hillary Rodham Clinton’s confirmation as secretary of state.

“I remind all my colleagues: We had an election,” McCain noted. “I think the message the American people are sending us now is they want us to work together, and get to work.”

[snip]

The surest sign of McCain’s return to his “maverick” ways came when he caught wind of an effort by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) to delay Clinton’s confirmation vote by a day, pushing it from Tuesday to Wednesday because he was seeking greater disclosure about foreign donors to former president Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation. McCain found the objection gratuitous — despite policy disagreements with Clinton, he and most Republicans consider her well qualified — and said so publicly.

“I think that’s indicative of the role that John McCain is going to play,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who hatched the push-back against Cornyn’s gambit over dinner with McCain on Tuesday night, and who followed him to the floor to support Clinton’s confirmation. “He’s going to play a very active role. He’s going to try to forge bipartisan coalitions. And he won’t shy away from controversy.”

And he continues to march to his own tune. Yesterday, McCain applauded Obama’s executive order to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, within a year, but he said that Obama had failed to address key issues, including the fate of the detainees being held there. He voted this month against releasing $350 billion in additional money to bail out the financial sector, even after Obama trekked to the Capitol to lobby for the aid. McCain had supported the original bailout bill when it came before Congress last fall, during the heat of the presidential campaign.

Just where was this guy during the campaign?

(An aside: Ted Kennedy is just as bipartisan as McCain, maybe even more so.  Kennedy had a huge hand in passing No Child Left Behind, for instance.  Why is it that he’s not called a maverick?  Just asking.)

OK, so I didn’t think Palin was ready to be VP before, but now I’m really convinced that she shouldn’t be in an executive office-ever. Hopefully, clueless conservatives (Sarah!) are on board now. Since losing the VP, Palin’s not just bared her soul, she’s taking it all off. She’s mad at the media, liberal bloggers, and the McSame campaign staff.

Palin’s finally figured out that she was exploited. If it’s taken her this long to realize she was taken advantage of… then, Houston, we have a problem. She’s also not too happy with the McSame campaign for “muzzling” her. But, “ya know,” she played along. If she was muzzled, it’s because she stood there and allowed them to muzzle her.

Joe The Plumber on the campaign trail in 2008 - (Source: Wikipedia)

As you may have heard, Joe The Plumber has signed on as a correspondent for Pajamas Media.  Joe recently took on the Israeli press with this great line aimed directly at them:

“You should be ashamed of yourself,” he told foreign reporters.

“You should be patriotic, protect your family and children, not report like you have been doing for the past two weeks since this war has started,” he said.

I say kudos to Joe….it is about time an ordinary member of society gets heard speaking the truth!

Of course, as you might expect, those in the left-leaning media and late-night comedians are all over Joe and his “inexperience”.  (Funny how those same lefties think Obama’s inexperience for leading the country is “‘charming” and “Messiah-like”, but I digress).

But surprisingly, even right-leaning blogs have a bit of a pompous attitude towards Joe and his efforts.

From HotAir.com: 

“Joe seems ready to make the same mistake that the MSM does, which is picking sides rather than reporting.”

From his own employer’s site, Pajamas Media:

The goal of cutting through the perceived bias of the mainstream media filter is an admirable one to be sure, but is this what our newly hatched journalist will deliver? The resultant reporting should be an unvarnished look inside Israel’s struggle with Hamas, examining the lives of those on each side. But might we be left with a suspicion that the reporter in question has a personal agenda? With such a thin resume as a reporter — stretching generosity to its limits — these remain difficult questions to answer.

Isn’t it interesting that so many people seem to be threatened when “average Joe” appears on the scene and gets more attention than they do?

As far as Joe’s experience or not….Granted, we are pretty certain he doesn’t hold a journalism degree, but since when did a journalism degree, in this day and age, make ANYONE qualified to convey the news? 

As one or many examples, let us just ponder the blistering harassment of Sarah Palin by the left-leaning, J-school elites!  The nastiness and opinionated “journalism” has been unbelievable.  Sarah Palin has now struck back at the media for its lies and mistreatment…..its time the media and “elites” have to defend themselves and the profession that currently thrives in the sewer.

(My favorite Palin smack on Katie Couric: “Because Katie, you are not the center of everybody’s universe”—-)

Pajamas Media and JTP’s employer, Roger Simon did a great job in defending Joe in a piece yesterday:

Joe’s Grade?

Of course, I could be accused of being a tad disingenuous, if, as Joe’s employer, I didn’t at least give a hint of how I feel he’s doing – so I will. Thus far, after two days, I would give Joe a “B to B+”. That’s not a perfect grade, but it’s a good one and far better than Al Gore got at Harvard.

A Thousand voices:

But nothing could be more ludicrous than to think that the presence of Joe Wurtzelbacher in Israel negates anyone else’s opinion of the Gaza War. Indeed, we are and have been for decades inundated with reporting and opinions from the Middle East. Joe the Plumber is one voice – and just one – among thousands and thousands.

Good point…a few toes have been stepped on…and Average Joe may reach people more effectively than the J-school snobs…that’s why they have their shorts in a wad over Joe!

I am rather enjoying the reactions of those trying to assess  Joe’s straight-forward truth-telling…..Joe may only have his 15 minutes of fame (or a career), but the side show of “elite” journalists and lefties defending their trade is hilarious considering that there are no longer journalism ethics and rules to be had.

The one rule that needs to be followed is being followed by Joe….TRUTH.  I say forget the moral equivalence that many try to push between reporting on Israel and Hamas.  There are just some things in this world that are truth and right….and don’t deserve a politically correct equivalence of some kind.

It is time someone puts a spotlight on TRUTH and stops nurturing the evil personified in Hamas, radical Islam (but  I repeat myself), and even the lying, corrupt, Socialist Democratic party and soon-to-be President we have in this country.

Again from Simon:

Many voices are good because the truth is often hard to find. Joe Wurtzelbacher is one of those voices.

You go Joe….I’m pulling for you.

Only those who do right  for the right reasons,  and don’t worship idols or tell lies under oath.  The LORD God, who saves them, will bless and reward them.    Psalms 24:4-5

Several people have directed me today to the raw video of an interview of Sarah Palin, conducted by John Ziegler, last seen losing his mind at Nate Silver over a weird poll he conducted with myriad foundational logic deficiencies. It’s a wide ranging discussion, primarily focuses on the way Palin feels she was treated by the media, which is all she ever talks about anymore.

One of the more trenchant moments (in fact, the only trenchant moment) comes late in the interview, when Palin is invited to make a comparison between herself and Caroline Kennedy. Basically, Palin seems to think that “class bias” is enabling favorable coverage of the New York Senate hopeful:

“I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope. … It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be.”

I think it’s true that too many have failed to consider what specific qualifications Kennedy brings to the table. Those that have, however, often compare Kennedy to Sarah Palin, most notably in a New York Times feature story that made the comparison right in the lede. That article has since been edited to remove the comparison — which perhaps gives Palin grounds for her contention. But really, is Palin not paying attention? Last week, everyone in the media made fun of Caroline Kennedy for saying “you know” over and over again. It was pretty brutal! (It was also pretty amusing to watch, as cable TV commentators had to softly tread around the fact that they, too, often pepper their commentary with similar verbal tics.)

Anyway, I hardly think a demonstration that “class issues” prevail in politics is all that startling a revelation. I’m told that Palin’s own running mate, for example, owns several homes.

If you’re interested, I watched nine minutes of this nonsense so you don’t have to. A rundown:

Grief Over Bloggers: Palin is still upset with the way the mainstream media treated the birth of Trig Palin. “When did we start accepting as hard news sources bloggers, anonymous bloggers, especially,” said Palin to Zeigler, a blogger. Actually, as a broad topic, it’s well worth discussing! But, as someone who was presented with the Trig Palin Conspiracy Story at the outset (and who personally, hasn’t found it all that convincing, sorry), I take issue with the notion that Trig Palin Birth Mysteries were featured in much “hard news.” In fact, the matter wasn’t given a whole lot of credence by anyone but The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan, who is not, as far as I can tell, an anonymous blogger. In the meantime, she might find bloggers “scary,” but I’m going to have to save my fears for an elected official who continually suggests that an investigation absolved her of ethical lapses when, in fact, it precisely didn’t.

Family in the Camera Eye: Palin seems to think that there was bias in the way her family was treated. “When I heard Barack Obama state in one of his interviews … that his wife was off limits, meaning, his family was off limits, I naively believed that they respected that … that it applied to all of us, but it didn’t apply.” EXACTLY RIGHT! And, in fact, it didn’t much apply to the Obamas either! I don’t know if Palin was watching the Democratic National Convention, but the entire first night was given over to the staging of a pageant play called, “Black Women: They Are NOT Terrifying!” where the media sat in judgment over whether or not Michelle Obama had successfully made herself “relatable” and “presentable” to America. It was awfully embarrassing for America that such a display was even necessary, but there you go! Meanwhile, the press is still shadowing the Obama children to school, reporting on what’s being served at the Sidwell Friends cafeteria. So, Sarah Palin has concluded she is “naive.” Know what? THIS IS ALSO NOT NEWS, TO ANYONE.

The “dropout” story: Palin is under the impression that no one in the media has corrected the erroneous account that Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston are “high school dropouts.” I think it would probably be a good idea, if Sarah Palin wants to critique the media, to start reading some. Andy Barr of Politico says this interview happened on this past Monday. If that’s the case, Palin should have availed herself of precisely the sort of clarification offered on December 31, 2008 by ABC News. This is especially dumb because she was the source of this correction, which she now claims was never reported.

John McCain is to blame for the Couric debacle: Palin blames the campaign for suggesting that she reappear with Katie Couric after her first interview “did not go well.” “Going back for more,” Palin says, “was not a wise decision.” Wow. Once upon a time, the McCain campaign was to blame for keeping her at a distance from the press, but Palin contends that actually, they’re to blame for making her face reporters! Campbell Brown, stand down!

Palin doesn’t watch her interviews: Palin says “I never saw the interview after Katie edited it … everybody spliced it together, whatever they did, and then aired it. Never saw how it came across, but my understanding is that so many other topics that were brought up weren’t portrayed as accurately as they could have … should have been after that interview.” Yeah. Know what? I’m just not prepared to accept Palin’s analysis of the way she was spliced and edited when those opinions are based on third-hand accounts of interviews she’s never watched herself.

To Explain Her Reading Habits: Oh, now Palin claims that her answer to Couric’s question on what newspapers she read (which was, I remind you, “All of them”) was a “flippant” answer to someone who thought she was the “center of the universe.” Naturally, she’s got a well-rehearsed response now involving her habitual reading of local papers, pursuant to her job as Governor of Alaska. Why couldn’t she just proffer that answer in the first place? If she had, you can imagine the field day she might have had if her shouting out the Anchorage Daily News had been met with condescension.

On Tina Fey: “I did see that Tina Fey was named entertainer of the year,” Palin says, suggesting that Fey (along with Katie Couric) successfully leveraged her VP run to achieve job security. And, indeed! Were it not for Palin, Tina Fey would have had little to fall back upon, other than a critically acclaimed television show, a successful movie, and being a universally loved and respected writer and comedienne! Nevertheless, I think Palin is right to be fixated on Tina Fey: until she made it okay to make fun of Sarah Palin, the press’ mission was largely one of using Palin as a “make up call” in their earlier treatment of Hillary Clinton.

How about a bizarre contra-historical thought exercise: How would Palin have been treated if she’d ended up as Barack Obama’s running mate? Palin says, “I think they would have loved me as a candidate … we would have seen an absolutely different and a … much prettier profile of Sarah Palin and the Palin family and my administration.” Respectfully: No. We would be seeing the election of John McCain!

Anyway, it’s all a little strange. The “mainstream media” she criticizes is probably the biggest promoter of the notion that Palin is the future of the Republican Party, even as her fellow cohorts — like Mark Sanford, who publicly laughed off this idea — run from her in embarrassment. And why wouldn’t they, since the only thing she’s adding to her candidate portfolio is endless iterations of the same under-informed, self-centered media criticism, and the BFF-ship of Greta Van Susteren?

Jason Linkins
Huffington Post

Sherry Johnston, mother of Levi Johnston, (boyfriend of Bristol Palin and father of her soon to be born child – the baby is due this weekend!!!), has been arrested on six felony counts of misconduct involving a controlled substance.

Troopers served the warrant at Johnston’s home at the “conclusion of an undercover narcotics investigation,” said a statement issued Thursday by the troopers as part of the normal daily summary of activity around the state.

Troopers charged Johnston with second-degree misconduct involving a controlled substance — generally manufacturing or delivering drugs — as well as fourth-degree misconduct involving controlled substances, or possession.

Troopers released no other information, including the kind or amount of drugs (Reuters reports that it is Oxycontin, a strong painkiller which is similar to morphine), because details could jeopardize an ongoing investigation, spokeswoman Megan Peters said.

Sherry Johnston was arrested around noon and booked at Mat-Su Pretrial Facility, according to a booking officer there. She was released on a $5,000 unsecured bond just after 2 p.m.

Her son, Levi Johnston, sat with Bristol and the rest of the Palin family in St. Paul, Minn., during Gov. Palin’s speech to the Republican National Convention, and he joined the family on the stage afterwards.
Levi Johnston, a hockey player for Wasilla High School, is not listed on the team roster for 2008-09, and his mother wouldn’t say if he graduated. She said simply he’s no longer a student and any further information would have to come from him.

The intense media scrutiny has stunned this suburban community about 40 miles north of Anchorage, with reporters camping out near the Johnston home.

“This is out of my league,” Sherry Johnston said. “I’m just a country gal, and I want to keep it that way.”

What a great surrounding for a soon to be born baby! The Palin hill billy clan is sure holding the people they surround themselves with to very high standards. This household is definitely a place that anyone would want their pregnant teenage daughter to hang out at. If you are sarcastic, you could argue that Bristol Palin’s baby was likely conceived in a crack house, maybe even under the influence of controlled substances! You are such a good hockey mom, Sarah! Way to take care of your kids! She is such a fucking hypocrite and she (still) makes me sick with her whole self-righteous act.

Now, just imagine how everybody would be on this, if this was Obama’s daughter…

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

McCain Campaign Sells Info-Loaded Blackberry to FOX 5 Reporter
Exclusive FOX 5 Investigation
Last Edited: Thursday, 11 Dec 2008, 11:02 PM EST

Created: Thursday, 11 Dec 2008, 11:02 PM EST

by Tisha Thompson and Rick Yarborough
FOX 5 Investigative Unit

ARLINGTON, Va. – Private information at bargain prices.  It was a high-tech flub at the McCain-Palin campaign headquarters in Arlington when Fox 5’s Investigative Reporter Tisha Thompson bought a Blackberry device containing confidential campaign information.

It started with a snippet we read on page A23 in Thursday’s Washington Post.  The McCain-Palin campaign was going to sell its used office inventory at low prices.

But when we got there, it didn’t look like we were going to get much.  It was lunchtime and most of the good stuff was gone, picked over by early birds looking for deals on file cabinets, white boards, sofas– anything headquarters could sell to get back some of their campaign dough.

MORE HERE